The Stalin school of falsification - Marxists Internet Archive

Stalin School of Falsification -- Chapter 15
intelligibly. They have the right . . . we must adapt ourselves . . . we must make the transition . . . but we
must do it. Our line will prove right. If we draw away from these people, all the oppressed will come to
us, because the war will bring them to us. They have no other way out.
Thesis III. No support whatever to the Provisional Government. We must explain the utter falsity of all
its promises, particularly its renunciation of annexations. There must be exposure instead of the
impermissible illusion -- breeding "demand" that this Government, the government of the capitalists,
cease being imperialistic.
Pravda demands of the Government that it renounce annexations. To demand of the government of the
capitalists that it renounce annexations -- nonsense! Flagrant mockery of....
From the scientific standpoint, it is such a fog of deceit, which the entire international proletariat, the
entire. . . . It is high time to admit the mistake. Have done with greetings and resolutions! It's time to get
down to business. We must proceed with a business-like, sober. . .
Thesis IV. Recognition of the fact that in the majority of the Soviets of Workers' and Soldiers' Deputies
our party constitutes a minority, and as yet a weak minority, in the face of the bloc of all the petty
bourgeois opportunist elements, from the Populist socialists and the S.R.'s down to the Organization
Committee, Steklov, etc., etc. (Chkheidze, Tseretelli, etc.) -- who have yielded to the influence of the
bourgeoisie, and have been extending this influence to the proletariat.
We must explain to the masses that the Soviet of Workers' Deputies is the only possible form of
revolutionary government; and that, therefore, our task is, while this Government is submitting to the
influence of the bourgeoisie, a patient, systematic and persistent explanation to the masses of the error of
their tactics, an explanation especially adapted to the practical needs of the masses.
So long as we remain in the minority, we carry on the work of criticism and of explaining errors,
advocating all along the necessity of transferring the entire state power to the Soviets of Workers'
Deputies, so that the masses may learn from experience how to rid themselves of their errors.
We Bolsheviks are in the habit of adopting a maximum of revolutionism. But that is not enough. It is
necessary to analyze. . . . The real government is the Soviet of Workers' Deputies. To think otherwise is
to lapse into anarchism. It is conceded that in the Soviet our party is in the minority. We must explain to
the masses that the Soviet of Workers' Deputies is the only possible government, never seen in the world
before, except for the Commune. What if the majority in the Soviet of Workers' Deputies holds the
defensist point of view? That cannot be helped. For us there remains only to explain patiently, insistently,
systematically the error of their tactics.
So long as we are in the minority, we carry on the work of criticism, in order to free the masses from
deceit. We do not want the masses to believe us just on our say-so; we are not charlatans. We want the
masses to he freed by expers.ence from their mistakes.
The Manifesto of the Soviet of Workers' Deputies -- there isn't a word in it imbued with
class-consciousness. There is nothing to it but phrases. The one thing that can ruin everything
revolutionary is the phrase this flattery of the revolutionary people. All of Marxism teaches us not to
succumb to the revolutionary phrase, especially at the moment when it is particularly current.
Thesis V. Not a parliamentary republic -- a return to it from the Soviet of Workers' Deputies would be a
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